Could On-site Excel Training The Best Solutions For Your Organisation?

By: Benjamin Williams

One of the pivotal components of the Microsoft Office 2007, Excel is a
uniquely powerful spreadsheet. If you bought this sophisticated piece of
software, it makes sense to ensure that your staff members know how to
use it effectively. Having allowed them a week or two to get used to the
new environment and go through some online tutorials, you will probably
want to get them properly trained. Tutor-led software training has the
benefit that delegates are able to ask questions as they learn and have
complex concepts explained and demonstrated to them until they fully
understand them.

Booking your staff on a public Excel course is of course one
possibility. However, increasingly companies are demanding to have
this training customised to meet their specific demands. Microsoft Excel
can be used for a variety of data analysis and storage tasks: not everyone
uses it in the same way. Perhaps you will be using it for complex business
modelling. Or, you may be using it to create interactive forms and reports
complete with complex calculations. Maybe your staff will be using the program
in a database role recording information under column headings. Booking a customised course will ensure that you only pay for instruction which is relevant to your requirements and reflects the way in which you will be using Microsoft Excel.

Before contacting and comparing Excel training companies, it would be a good idea to ensure that you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve by using Excel and that your expectations are realistic. When you approach training companies, you should make it clear that you do not simply want them to deliver their standard Excel courses but that you require a customised programme of training. Between you, a schedule of topics to be covered should then be drawn up and the duration of the program decided.

Part of tailoring the training will be the identification of the different requirements within your own organisation. Different people may need to do different tasks with the program and therefore need different skills. For example, some of your users will be primarily interested in using Excel for business analysis and projection. Their primary areas of interest will be the "What if" analysis tool like goal seek, scenarios and pivot tables. On the other hand, you may have people who are interested in create charts and reports either for printing or for use in PowerPoint presentations.

Most training companies offering customised Excel courses should be willing to accommodate the specific needs of your organisation and the different profiles of the staff members: accounts, sales and marketing, etc. Between you, you can then create a program of study which satisfies the needs of all users. Perhaps this may mean, having different courses for users with different profiles or perhaps the best approach will be a modular one whereby some modules are taken by everyone while others are only attended by certain user groups.